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Monday, April 24, 2017

MDHT: Very Green. Very Honest.

So Charlie's first full three-phase horse trial is in the books! Let's see if we can do a quick summary of the endeavors, shall we? And have no fear - much more to come (per usual, zillions of photos and video bc... ya know, gotta document it all!). But for now, let's keep it high level!

may i present: representative expressions of both horse and rider for the day lol

To start: Bella looked lovely in her new up-cycled DIY bonnets. I failed to grab a close-up pic of her in the blue jump bonnet, but I finished the black dressage bonnet just in time the night before the event. In my ever-so-humble opinion, it suits her perfectly!

lovely mare is lovely <3

And actually, Brita and Bella had quite a nice day altogether - their dressage keeps getting better. And obvi this mare doesn't like to touch any fences, but she's also continuously getting more rideable with every outing. It's exciting to watch!

happy the riding part is over lol

As for Charlie, he was his usual quiet self on the show grounds. We were able to hand walk around for a while as Brita did her dressage warm up and test, and he settled in well.

"hm, yup, that's grass!" - charlie, probably

He was a little less quiet for our rides tho. Still a very good horse - but where at our first event last month I described him as riding beyond the fullest measure of his current level of training.... Well.... At this event he showed that, YUP, still a very green horse too.

CALM DOWN CHARLIE

The dressage was unfortunately very poor. It's not really his fault - I didn't plan quite enough time to warm up, and in his defense we've been doing an awful lot of jump and cross country practice lately. He saw the jumps, saw the running horses, and was pretty sure that's what we ought to be doing. And in fact at times I felt like we might actually jump out of the ring....

That said, tho, while the score was poor from a competitive perspective, I was actually very pleased with him and felt like he gave me some very good moments despite his tension. More details (and media) later.

yay team!

The jumping was very green too. But also good. And wouldn't you know it, the horse went through both jumping phases with zero jumping penalties. Yessssssss.
The cross country course was freakin perfect for us too - as they had a couple really fun jumps in there and a couple that definitely challenged Charlie (vs just a bunch of logs that he could blast over without a second thought). Homeboy got the right answers tho. And, again, so many pictures and video to come haha.

who needs a ribbon when there's spiked seltzer and friends with satin?!? #teamspirit

So we didn't collect any satin for our last-place completion (tho Brita swears she saw someone walking around with a 7th place ribbon so maybe I need to check in on that..?). But it hardly matters to me - I'm so excited for the horse, and so excited to FINALLY be really truly eventing again.

The horse is as honest as the day is long, and I can't wait to keep chippin away at his training to see what new shape emerges :D

omg i do not know how we got so lucky with the weather. seriously. we were all braced for 40s and rain, and had planned to pack all of the extra coolers and sheets we could fit.... but... instead i'm sunburnt haha. go figure! i'll take it tho!

ha definitely! in fact i somehow never ended up writing out explicit goals for this event, but had i done that (like i usually do, oops), they would have gone something along those lines (tho i would have been ok with some jump penalties from green moments or rider errors too, but you know what i mean!)

Hooray! I'm glad it was a success! Looking forward to more media, too. :) We did not go to our 30 miler due to an unscheduled three weeks off (one for snow, two for lameness) but instead over the weekend we Hunter Paced with Rose Tree - Blue Mountain and that was great fun, so not a total loss.

Outing, trailer-driving practice (With Turnpike Tunnels!!), jumping over things, all good. They have another ride in the fall (October, I think) and we might shoot for that one. The midsummer ride is a madhouse due to the Old Dominion 100 happening at the same time... I would like more experience before we try that.

yay was waiting all weekend for this update and sounds like it was great. And honestly I am glad Charlie was a little looky in dressage. WE ALL SUFFER thru that to get to the fun part (Jumping) he will figure it out in good time!! YAY was it fun in the start box when you were ready to go. GOD I love (and hate) that feeling :)looks like a great day. cant wait to see all the media...

omg THE MEDIA COMETH haha. i bought another one of those GRC Photo packages of all the photos from the day. can't wait to share!

and yea, it was a good reminder for me to see him really struggle in the dressage test. he is green, after all, and i need to be prepared for when the thin veneer of this schooling starts wearing off. he'll get more confirmed eventually tho!

au contraire! haha it's funny that you should mention that - but i'm pretty sure i checked off quite a few eventing BINGO squares with this outing. i need to check my cards to be double sure, but yea.... there are definitely a few good (and bad) boxes to check off!! more details soon!

yea i mean he's a green horse haha, i don't expect him to be super confirmed in anything yet. and especially cantering for the first time in a test - it's hard to tell this big lumbering giant to open up into his top gear, and then right away ask him to come back again, all while staying soft. he tried tho, and that's what matters!

ha yes - very true, any time we do anything with horses, coming through uninjured is definitely goal #1 - tho typically i set the bar just a smiiiiidge higher than that ;) thanks tho! i'm quite happy with how it all went!

yep it was a great day! tho actually, in my book, "finishing" often isn't actually the most important thing - look no further than Isabel's and my first run at Jenny Camp when i fell off at the end of xc, therefore meaning a con-complete. but yet it was still a great day

haha yea, i think he just didn't understand, ya know? he's so used to just doing ONE JOB, that it hasn't really occurred to him that there's a little more nuance to his new job lol. and we're still only just figuring out how to maintain our flat work in our jumping too.... he'll get it tho, he's no dummy!